Bay County official says Paraleon Pier project has 'run its course from a county perspective'

View full sizePhoto courtesy of Nancy BaxterNancy Baxter at Paraleon Beach with her father and younger brother in the early 1930s.

BANGOR TOWNSHIP, MI — Nancy Baxter of Saginaw recalls family trips to Bangor Township's Paraleon Pier in the early 1930s when she was a young child. She remembers picnic lunches, wool swimsuits and her younger brother walking along the pier with her father.

Baxter was excited that Bay County was considering establishing a pier at the former location once again.

"We tracked in a lot of sand back to our car when we left for home," Baxter said. "If the beach were cleaned up and this was put back in, it would really be an attraction and one more place to use the beautiful Great Lakes."

But earlier this month, Bay County officials learned the Michigan Department of Natural Resources opposes the pier project, and Laura Ogar, the county's environmental affairs and community development director, says that county efforts to pursue the project have ended.

"From the county perspective, the project has run its course," said Ogar. "Bay County has taken the project as far as it can go up the flagpole, and that is really all we can do."

The Saginaw Bay shoreline was once known as the "Coney Island of the Great Lakes," with residents recalling a dance pavillion, white sand, a fishing pier and several amusement parks. Bay County officials have considered building a pier at the old location for almost 20 years, Ogar said.

Ogar applied for a $45,000 matching grant from Coastal Zone Managementtowards preliminary engineering and a site design for a fishing and viewing pier at the former Paraleon Beach Pier. Plans called for possible construction of the new pier at the end of State Park Drive on land adjacent to the Bay City State Recreation Area in Bangor Township.